Transit Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread

[jplumbley]

This is a thread that is made for a discussion started in the HSRP Thread and should have been put into its own thread.  All posts from the original discussion will be moved here.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Cogeo

Andreas, the station looks nice, but I have some points:
- HSR stations (esp big ones) are in many cases terminals, not through stations. So I would love to see this implemented as a terminal station too. A small modification to the BAT is needed (put something like a wall at the one end). You would end up with three BATs/stations, a through station, a terminal-track-at-left station and a terminal-track-at-left station.
- Some mechanism must be devised to keep sims from using HSR for short hops, ie as a commuter train, which would be totally unrealistic. Ideally HSR should be used for intercity travel only. Maybe setting Switch Entry Cost to a quite high value would do this (total commute time wouldn't suffer, because to the much shorter travel time). We could also issue this suggestion for all HSR stations and not just leave it to the players and track layout; otherwise they would be tempted to lay HSR track for intra-city travel, which would be crap.
- Not to mention, I would like to see a small modification of this station(s), for GHSR (I can't see it clearly in the pic, forgive me if it's already).

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Andreas

Well, I didn't make the station, I only updated the stats a bit. It's the old HSR station that was released some two years ago, when the idea of the HSR project came up for the first time. I'll definitely set the Transit Switch Entry Cost to a high value (according to jplumbley's formula, it would be 2.9), and currently, it acts as a transit hub between HSR, el-rail, (heavy) rail and bus. Needless to say, only one or two of those stations should be used in your cities, with the HSR part acting as regional connection, while the rail and el-rail parts should be connected to your local commuter network. I haven't tested the HSR so far, but now that we have a functional beta version, I can try to plop this in my region and see how it performs.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Cogeo

I'll definitely set the Transit Switch Entry Cost to a high value (according to jplumbley's formula, it would be 2.9), and currently, it acts as a transit hub between HSR, el-rail, (heavy) rail and bus.

I'm afraid a value of 2.9 would be way too high. Indeed how does this come out? A value high enough so that pedestrians don't use it is a shortcut? It's rather flawed. I think even a much lower value, eg 1.0, would be enough to render the station completely unusable. I was talking about a value like 0.20 or 0.30. Anyways, testing could tell what the optimal value would be.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Andreas

@cogeo: The value is calculated from a formula that jplumbley came up with along with his and mott's findings about TE lots. I don't know enough about that matter, so I can't say how it will affect the pathfinding engine.

[jplumbley]

This has become an interesting thread...  Maybe I should weigh in my two cents.
____________________________________________________________________

Lets start with the Traffic Switch Entry Cost:

OK.. from looking at the picture of the lot.  This lot *does* or *did* have a switch from each Traffic Type to Pedestrian Traffic, as well as, most likely a Pedestrian Traffic to Pedestrian Traffic Switch Point.  This clearly would show that the slowest Traffic Type that is using the lot is in fact Pedestrian Traffic.

Now, we can look at this from a few different view points.  Let's start with looking at where the intended Traffic Switch Entries are.

If you look at the picture of the lot, clearly, the North and the South side are both designed to be the terrances for the station.  These are pickup/dropoff areas.  This means if the Traffic Switch Points are setup so that anything the converts to Pedestrian Traffic can exit on the North or the South side, then we have created a spot where the Sim can jump from the North-West Corner of the lot to the South East corner of the lot.  This means that this is the maximum distance a Sim can jump through the lot.  So due to this the calculation must be done based on the diagonal distance of the lot to prevent the Sims from getting "free" commute.

Note:  IF a Sim enters a TE Lot that it can easily walk past, it is bad for the simulation of the game.  The reason for this is because when a Sim enters the TE Lot he "forgets" his past and must re-calculate his path.  Doing this re-calculation requires for more CPU useage and will distort the Commute Time shown in you Commute Graph and start giving you funny paths.  Only Sims that are using the lot for a purpose of a Traffic Switch such as Ped to Rail, should be using a TE Lot.

Now, for a station that has only one pickup/dropoff on the South Side of the lot can be more beneficial.  It controls where the Pedestrians are allowed to Enter/Exit the Lot.  This means that we can base the calculation for the Traffic Switch Entry Cost off of the length of the South Side of the Lot, in effectiveness lowering the Traffic Switch Entry Cost because there is a shorter maximum distance the Sim can jump through the lot.

You may now start to see big TE Lots can potentially be a BAD thing.

Cogeo, I have based my calculations off of a very good math base.  I assure you I am correct.  I understand the limitations of a high Traffic Switch Entry Cost, probably more than anyone here.  The problem is people do not know what the problem with a low one is, because they may not be able to comprehend what I have been saying.  For the Simulation to be *optimal*, my formula is the one you need to use.

I have been discussing and thinking (*warning* this will get very technical) about certain lots such as Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations.  From the main formula we have derived that a 7x9 Rail Station should have a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3.  For the MAXIS Vanilla Simulator this is simply too high, the Maximum Commute Time for Mass Transit is 4.  This means there is only a 0.7 Commute left commited to the 2nd Station and the actual Commute, clearly not enough.  If the second Station was a MAXIS Standard Station 2x3, it would have a Traffic Switch Entry Cost of 0.91.. and you wouldnt have any time left for the physical Commute.  This is beyond the limit for the MAXIS Vanilla Traffic Simulator, but Simulator A and Simulator B have been modified and the Maximum Commute Time is different for this.

Maximum Commute Time (Mass Transit)
Vanilla Simulator = 4
Simulator B = 10
Simulator A = 14

If you were using Simulator B where the Maximum Commute Time for Mass Transit is 10, that would leave:

   10-3.3-.0.91 =  5.79 Commute Value

Speed of Rail = 90 Tiles per Commute Value

Therefore it would leave the maximum trip a Sim cna travel between stations is 521 tiles, or essentially one large city tile in length.  Simulator A will be even longer than that, but unfortunately it wouldnt work for the Vanilla Simulator.

There is still a way for us to lower that Entry Cost though.  As stated above, for many of Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations the main entrance is the South Side of the lot.  This means we can make it so Sims will only walk out of the South side of the lot and base the calculation off only the length of the South Side.  In this case it would be 7 in the 7x9 lot.  So 7x0.29 = 2.03, much lower than the 3.3.  This means it will work even with the Vanilla Simulator because it will have an initial trip cost of 2.03+0.91 = 2.94 and have 1.06 left over for the physical commute, which is 95 tiles.  In MAXIS scale everything is small so, 95 tiles is pretty good.

Note:  Remember, each time a Sim reaches a Station it begins a new trip.  So, each station begins a new segment of the trip which has a fresh commute time to start with.

There is one other way to deal with this that will even further reduce the Entry Cost, but this comes at a sacrafice.  The sacrafice we must make is allowing some Pedestrians to use the lot as a shortcut instead of designing for the worst case scenario.  We could design it so that it is designed for 50% of the worst case scenario, or something to that effect.  Basing the calculation exactly the same except by cutting the time in half.  By doing this you will have stopped busses from entering a bus station and then converting back to busses taking a "free" tile, but a Sim walking past the station may choose to enter it and skip a tile.  This is not as evidently seen because it is masked by Sims entering and exiting the bus station properly is masking the Sim walking past and using it when it shouldnt need to.

There needs to be a community concensus about this and we are discussing this and how to apply it into the XTool to automatically set a Traffic Switch Entry Cost for the user.  When XTool is finished we will have properly modded TE Lots without having to think about it.  Myself and a few others have been discussing and testing the possibilities... this includes both Pros and Cons of the situations.  The thing that Creators need to be aware of is that MAXIS did not intend for large stations, that means if you go beyond the MAXIS scale you are hindering your own work and could render it useless.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Glazert

jplumbley, I found that a very informative essay. I will have to reread it several times to make sure, but I may be beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, though that is the wrong transit metaphor.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Memo

I also have a question concerning the traffic switch entry costs.
If I connected a grand rail station like Ill Tonkso's large Rail Station with one single street tile only and left some space between the station and the rest of the streets, would it essentially suffice then to set a traffic switch entry cost of "0", since Sims won't be able to use the station as a short cut??
A little illustration:

s......
s..####
s..####
sss####
s..####
s..####
s......

s = street
. = open space
# = station

[RippleJet]

I have been discussing and thinking (*warning* this will get very technical) about certain lots such as Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations.  From the main formula we have derived that a 7x9 Rail Station should have a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3.

This is a bit hypothetical, since peds would never be walking that distance anyways, if the station wasn't there.

But even with a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3, peds would still, theoretically, be shortcutting the station.
This all due to the fact that peds don't walk diagonally.

The alternative would be to walk around the station, e.g. from the southeastern corner of the station to the northwestern corner:
  + 7 tiles along the southern edge
  + 1 corner/intersection tile in the southwestern corner
  + 9 tiles along the western edge
  + 1 corner/intersection tile in the northwestern corner
  = 18 tiles

With a pedestrian speed of 3.5 Tiles per Commute Value, this would give a total Commute Value of:
  18 Tiles / 3.5 Tiles per Commute Value = 5.14

Clearly higher than 3.3, but still a lot higher than all other alternatives.
None of the pathfinders would of course choose any of the options above.

Even the slowest alternative, cars on streets in Vanilla gives a considerably lower commute value:
  18 Tiles / 21 Tiles per Commute Value = 0.86

If I connected a grand rail station like Ill Tonkso's large Rail Station with one single street tile only and left some space between the station and the rest of the streets, would it essentially suffice then to set a traffic switch entry cost of "0", since Sims won't be able to use the station as a short cut??
A little illustration:

s......
s..####
s..####
sss####
s..####
s..####
s......

s = street
. = open space
# = station

That would of course suffice.
But that's not how users plopping a grand rail station would be doing it.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Cogeo

From the postings above, I think it has now became clear that setting the Transit Switch Cost according to the lot size (so that pedestrians don't use the station as a shortcut) isn't a very good idea. In most cases the resulting values are so high that the station would get unusable. As most ingame and custom stations have a cost of 0 (and roads are always available), sims will just opt for another station and/or form of transportation, often resulting in a longer total commute time and increasing road traffic. For example, very few sims would use a 1x1 station with a Transit Switch Cost of 0.36, the value that works best for such a station would be 0.03-0.05 (most shortcutting eliminated). A value of 0.10 causes a noticable reduction of real usage (excl pedestrians and the through trafic) and eliminates almost all shortcutting for 1x1 stations. I would better accept some little shortcutting instead of setting entry cost to a very high value. It would be interesting to see the test results from the station makers.

And of course the station should also work with the standard pathfinding settings too, and not rely on or require installation of a special pathfinding settings set. Btw which is the default max commute time for SC4/RH. I know about the settings for SC4 Vanilla and the ones suggested by jplumbley/mott (refered to as "Simulator A" and "Simulator B"), but what are the ones for RH? Are they the same as Vanilla's? I think they should be named simply "default" or "standard", otherwise (ie using the term "Vanilla") players may think that the station is for non-RH SC4 only!

Memo, I agree with RippleJet, such a street layout works but it's totally unrealistic for a Hbf. Another alternative would be to limit the transit switches to specific lot sides, eg front only, setting the Transit Switch Point property. I have done so for my Suburban GLR stations (STEX), eg buses can only reach the stations from the front side. Just an idea.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Warrior

The HSR is dependant on the NAM so all calculations should be based on the NAM as the uesr will have to have the NAM to be able to use HSR which is needed to be able to use that station.


Also this is getting slightly off topic and [almost] all the posts have been made by NAM members so any more posts on the TE settings should go in the HSR private thread, thanks.

-Jonathan.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Cogeo

Warrior, I meant the default stuff that comes with NAM, the A and B sets are not a standard part of NAM and therefore many players may not have them installed, so stations shouldn't require them. But you're right this is station-making, so it should be posted in another thread.

Now about that dual track, what would you suggest? I think memo is right, plus making them this way doesn't require changing the global settings (ie what kind of traffic is allowed on each network type). Also take into account that they may prove quite complicated, as they have to connect and branch to both GHSR and Rail networks (in addition to the dual network itself). I don't know how difficult this can be if implemented as draggable, but even as puzzle pieces it would require a lot of work, because of the many combinations. For example, the "Right Junction" type alone would need the following puzzle pieces (I hope you understand what I mean in each case, descriptions may be confusing so please correct them if needed, my English is poor):

1. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Junction
2  Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to Rail
3. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to HSR
4. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Turn / Forward Branch to Rail
5. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Turn / Forward Branch to HSR
6. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to Rail / Forward Branch to HSR
7. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to HSR / Forward Branch to Rail
(Hope I didn't forget anything).

Seems a lot of work, though as a design (graphically) these can look almost identical. If this shared track has the look of conventional track (and I think this is the idea, ie HSR terminating at "old" stations), for the above puzzle pieces there would be required 3 textures. One identical to the conventional Right Junction track (1,2,4) one with a forward/rail-to-HSR transition (5,6) and another one with a right/rail-to-HSR transition (3,7), ie both dual track and conventional track sections would be identical.

Comments please.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Warrior

I think the new simulators will be part of the next NAM. Check the release thread.

[jplumbley]

Originally Written by: Cogeo

What if a base set was included in the first beta (providing even that is ready in time) So there are no branches, just orth, diagonal basic crossing (if any) and then transitions?

I think a minimal base set should include the straight one and the branches - these are absolutely essential as both GHSR and conventional track needs to connect to them. You may even omit "basic crossing" (provided that tracks will diverge a few tiles off the station), but branches are absolutely necessary, otherwise how will different types of track connect to? Take as an example the Avenue/GLR puzzle pieces, without the "connectors" they are unusable.

There should probably be a slight visual difference between normal rail and and the dual network?

Dunno, I guess someone has to post a few pics.

We could add monorail paths to the whole MAXIS rail network and modify the simulator(which shouldn't be too much of a problem) this way HSR trains can run on rail without having to spend money and time redrawing rail.

This is a radically different approach, and I don't know how much work this can be, or how good it is technically.

[jplumbley]

From the postings above, I think it has now became clear that setting the Transit Switch Cost according to the lot size (so that pedestrians don't use the station as a shortcut) isn't a very good idea. In most cases the resulting values are so high that the station would get unusable.

Whether or not it the Transit Switch Cost is based on the speed of Pedestrians, or if it is based on the speed of the slowest alternate Traffic Type in the lot (busses for Streets), the calculation still must be done based on the size of the lot.  A lot that is 1x1 shouldnt have the same Traffic Switch Cost as a 7x9 large rail station.  They are not the same and should not be considered the same from the viewpoint of the Simulator.

As most ingame and custom stations have a cost of 0 (and roads are always available), sims will just opt for another station and/or form of transportation, often resulting in a longer total commute time and increasing road traffic.

No TE Lot including the MAXIS Vanilla ones that have a Traffic Switch Cost of "0" have been modded properly.  This is bad for the Simulation for your game and should be fixed.

For example, very few sims would use a 1x1 station with a Transit Switch Cost of 0.36, the value that works best for such a station would be 0.03-0.05 (most shortcutting eliminated).

If the lot is 1x1, and is intended to be a Bus Station, the slowest alternate speed of the TE Lot would be Busses which is 35.  This means that the Traffic Switch Cost would be 0.042 instead of 0.42 for Pedestrian Traffic.  This would prevent all Bus, Cars, etc from "jumping" through the lot.  But, it would still allow Sims to walk through the lot at an "increased" speed.  I think this would close to the best situation, but instead of taking the calculation through the diagonal of the lot is should be ( Length + Depth x 0.029¹ = Traffic Switch Cost ), which would mean 0.058 would be the cost for a 1x1 Bus Station.

¹ 0.029 is the cost per tile of the Bus Speed.

A value of 0.10 causes a noticable reduction of real usage (excl pedestrians and the through trafic) and eliminates almost all shortcutting for 1x1 stations. I would better accept some little shortcutting instead of setting entry cost to a very high value. It would be interesting to see the test results from the station makers.

Me too.

And of course the station should also work with the standard pathfinding settings too, and not rely on or require installation of a special pathfinding settings set. Btw which is the default max commute time for SC4/RH. I know about the settings for SC4 Vanilla and the ones suggested by jplumbley/mott (refered to as "Simulator A" and "Simulator B"), but what are the ones for RH? Are they the same as Vanilla's? I think they should be named simply "default" or "standard", otherwise (ie using the term "Vanilla") players may think that the station is for non-RH SC4 only!

Of course it should work with the Vanilla, it is only the really large stations that people have made that are completely out of scale with the MAXIS Vanilla standards that are the ones that will run into this problem.  As, shown even when they are way out of whack it is still possible to get them under that threshold to a certain point.  People need to remember there is a limit to everything and we cannot go making 20x30 lots intended to be a station.  This is just simply too big compared to the scale of the rest of the game.

The MAXIS Vanilla Maximum Commute Time for Mass Transit was posted in my previous post and I used it to show that Ill Tonkso's 7x9 station would not work unless we used the South Side only approach to modding his lot.  That value is 4. 

Vanilla means SC4/RH made by MAXIS, out of the box.

Memo, I agree with RippleJet, such a street layout works but it's totally unrealistic for a Hbf. Another alternative would be to limit the transit switches to specific lot sides, eg front only, setting the Transit Switch Point property. I have done so for my Suburban GLR stations (STEX), eg buses can only reach the stations from the front side. Just an idea.

Agreed.  And this is why we must have proper Traffic Switch Entry Costs.

[CLR1SC4D]

I have been modding some transit stations on my own and did some experiments to see which transit switch entry cost would prevent Sims from walking through the station, with some interesting results.  Four experiments were performed using Mott's park and ride traffic simulator (walking speed 5, only walking can reach destination).  Transit  stations were modded to have no jobs and to only allow pedestrian traffic.  (The cities only allowed pedestrian traffic.)

Experiment 1:  What entry cost would prevent Sims from short cutting through a station of varying length along a road?  In this scenario the road only touched the station along one side.  Stations were varied in size length from 1 to 20.  The results are below.

TSEC: Transit Switch Entry Cost

Station Length	TSEC
1	NA
2	0.000001
3	0.089
4	0.135
5	0.162
6	0.1795
7	0.1917
10	0.2155
20	0.242

Based on this data (and some additional testing including walking speed of 1) a curve was fitted to the data with the following equation:

TSEC = {[1-(2/Station Length)]*1.3435}/Transit Speed

Experiment 2:  What entry cost would prevent Sims from short cutting through a station of varying size at a corner of a road?  In this scenario the road touched the station along two adjacent sides.  Stations were varied in size as listed below.

(1X1, 1X2, 1X3, 1X4, 1X5, 2X2, 2X3, 3X3, 10X10)

Surprisingly all stations had the same value that prevented most Sims from using the station as a shortcut 1.3435/Transit Speed.

Experiment 3:  What entry cost would maintain the commute time of Sims traveling across a transit station?  A city was setup with residential on one side and commercial & industrial on the other separated by 9 tiles in one of the following configurations; pedestrian mall tiles, pedestrian mall tiles alternating with a 1X1 transit station (5 pedestrian mall tiles & 4 transit stations), pedestrian mall tiles alternating with a 1X3 transit station (3 pedestrian mall tiles & 2 1X3 transit stations), and pedestrian mall tiles on either side of a 1X7 transit station.
The transit switch entry cost that maintained a constant commute for the 1X1, 1X3 and 1X7 station was found to be the same as found in experiment 2, 1.3435/(Transit Speed).

Experiment 4:  What entry cost balance the number of Sims traveling across two equal distance paths?  A city was setup with residential on one side and commercial & industrial on the other separated by 9 tiles with one path of 9 pedestrian mall tiles and the other in one of the following configurations;  pedestrian mall tiles alternating with a 1X1 transit station (5 pedestrian mall tiles & 4 transit stations), pedestrian mall tiles alternating with a 1X3 transit station (3 pedestrian mall tiles & 2 1X3 transit stations), and pedestrian mall tiles on either side of a 1X7 transit station.
The transit switch entry cost that kept all the Sims on the pedestrian mall tiles was 1.3445/(Transit Speed).  At 1.323/(Transit Speed) half of the Sims used each route.  With 1.303/(Transit Speed) all the Sims traveled the route through the transit stations.


Another interesting point is that 1.3435 is 95% of the diagonal across a 1X1 tile.  I do not know if this means anything or not.

Is it possible that the transit switch entry cost is applied for each tile across a station?

If this information is of interest to anyone, or if there are questions please let me know.

Christopher

[jplumbley]

This indeed is very interesting results.

I did briefly see your post last week... Ive just been running around like a chicken with my head cut off and doing a few other things.

This really does seem like it has been a thurough test and it is very interesting that you came up with essentially the same number in all your tests.  That is almost mind boggling.  It really does make sense that the Traffic Switch Cost would be applied to every tile.

So....  From what I am understanding.  Since most Transit Stations allow Traffic to enter from all 4 sides the best Experiment to work from is Experiment 2.  Here you said that 1.3435/Traffic Speed prevented a change in the commute.  This would mean that for a Simulator with a Pedestrian Speed of 5 you would get a value of 0.2687 to prevent Sims from "short cutting" through a station.  Is this correct?

If so... that is definately surprising.  But, yet makes sense.

I wonder at what point does the Simulator choose Driving before Walking and if different size TE Lots has an impact on this.  A Test for this could be set so that there is a TE Lot 10 tiles from the residential and work 150 tiles from the residential on a Road with Mott's Simulator.

[CLR1SC4D]

This would mean that for a Simulator with a Pedestrian Speed of 5 you would get a value of 0.2687 to prevent Sims from "short cutting" through a station.  Is this correct?

This is the gist of what I found when a TE lot was placed on a corner.  The value 0.2687 seamed to fit better with the rest of the experiments.  At this value 2 Sims actually cut across the station.  Much like experiment 4 a value of 0.13445/Transit Speed (0.2689 for a transit speed of 5) totally eliminates all short cutting.  As this value is gradually decreased more Sims cut across.  If roads encircled a lot or formed a "U" around the lot with the opening North then to prevent Sims from cutting across the lot on the North would require a larger value. 

I wonder at what point does the Simulator choose Driving before Walking and if different size TE Lots has an impact on this.  A Test for this could be set so that there is a TE Lot 10 tiles from the residential and work 150 tiles from the residential on a Road with Mott's Simulator.

I am not sure I totally understand the question.  Would this be similar to experiment 3 with one pathway across ped malls and TE Lots, and a longer road that loops around connecting the residential and work (commercial & industrial)?

If I understand the simulator correctly choosing driving versus walking is based on a total trip cost which is a balance between the preferred travel strategy (which determines trip starting cost), transit speed, distance, and transit station entry costs.  When driving and buses were allowed the slow bus speed on roads of Mott's simulator (transit speed of 5, same as walking) made it so all Sims drove.  As the bus speed on roads was increased more people took the bus.  An alternative way to encourage bus traffic was to increase the trip starting cost that Mott had for cars from 1 to 1.95.

[dedgren]

Uhhh, I just like to watch the cars go back and forth...

CLR1SC4D...

...that's a mouthful, can we call you CLR for short?

Those two comments have to be the best informed and most detailed first two posts any member has ever made here.  A major hats off! to you- if you can catch Jason's (jplumbley) attention like that, you've got quite a future ahead of you here.

Glad to have you aboard.


David

[jplumbley]

I am not sure I totally understand the question.  Would this be similar to experiment 3 with one pathway across ped malls and TE Lots, and a longer road that loops around connecting the residential and work (commercial & industrial)?

If I understand the simulator correctly choosing driving versus walking is based on a total trip cost which is a balance between the preferred travel strategy (which determines trip starting cost), transit speed, distance, and transit station entry costs.  When driving and buses were allowed the slow bus speed on roads of Mott's simulator (transit speed of 5, same as walking) made it so all Sims drove.  As the bus speed on roads was increased more people took the bus.  An alternative way to encourage bus traffic was to increase the trip starting cost that Mott had for cars from 1 to 1.95.

Well, if we were to make both MT and Car "equal" (by setting the Preffered Trip Costs to 0) and make a test where the time it takes to reach the destination is equal (destination for MT is a station).  Then we can test differing lengths of Stations where the Traffic Switch Entry Cost is the same and we can see if the different lengths of stations will add to the total commute, even with the same Traffic Switch Entry Cost.  Doing this will confirm whether or not the Traffic Switch Entry Cost is being added to each tile in the TE Lot, or if it is just a single cost.